A drugs courier who was caught with 145 wraps of high-grade cocaine up his backside has been jailed for two and a half years.

Spencer Bowen, aged 20, was one of three men arrested following the incident on Wolseley Road on the evening May 21 this which saw officers target a dark-coloured Ford Focus hatchback at the junction with Royal Navy Avenue.

Bowen, from Skipton Road, Liverpool, was arrested along with a 40-year-old man from Liskeard and an 18-year-old from Plymouth.

Police also found more drugs, a butcher’s cleaver and an air rifle – though those items were nothing to do with Bowen.

Armed officers at Wolseley Road scene on Monday night (Image: KS)

Bowen later pleaded guilty at Crown Court to possession of a Class A drug with intent to supply.

The court had previously heard how police were watching the Ford Focus drive over the Tamar Bridge. Armed officers stopped the car in Wolseley Road at the junction of Royal Navy Avenue in Keyham at about 8.30pm that day.

Bowen had 11 previous convictions for 19 offences, including five matters of drugs possession.

Geoff Parlby, for Bowen, had previously said his client had been put under pressure to act as a drugs courier after building up a debt for cocaine and cannabis. He then agreed to run the drugs to pay off what he owed.

The solicitor told the court that Bowen did not know what he was carrying, but suspected it was cocaine.

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Mr Parlby said Bowen had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, was no longer using cocaine and was reducing his cannabis use.

At Bowen’s sentencing hearing on Tuesday, August 14, Mr Parlby said his client had shown a willingness to co-operate with the probation service and had completed his unpaid work hours.

The case was heard at Plymouth Crown Court (Image: File image)

He emphasised Bowen’s “vulnerability to be used by others” and that prison was “not the best place for someone like him with his vulnerability”.

Judge Paul Darlow, nodding towards Bowen’s mother who sat in the public gallery, said he was “very sorry that she sees her son behind the glass dock”.

He said those who “peddle drugs” added to “the misery, breakdown of family life and breakdown of community”.

Spencer Bowen (Image: Devon and Cornwall Police)

He said he recognised the offence was carried out to pay off a debt, but noted it was a dept “accumulated because you like to smoke cannabis” and that there was “no suggestion that you were under any threat”.